Can-do Attitude: Sailors Cutting Costs

NEWPORT NEWS — Ten on the aircraft carrier Eisenhower handle work on their own, instead of turning it over to the shipyard -- a move that saved the Navy about $600,000.

Hundreds of telephones, speakers and amplifiers on the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower were once destined to be repaired by Northrop Grumman Newport News or one of its subcontractors.

But then, the Navy said, 10 Navy electronics technicians in the ship's combat systems department came up with another idea: doing the job themselves.

"We opened up the phones and said, 'This is something we can work on. We can do this,' " said Ann M. Ferguson, 35, an enlisted sailor on the Eisenhower. The carrier is in the last few months of its midlife refueling and overhaul at the Newport News shipyard.

Those sailors saved the Navy about $600,000, the Navy said -- money that the Eisenhower can now use for other repairs.

And over the long term, the potential savings to the Navy are well into the millions. Because the sailors demonstrated that they can do the work on the Ike, similar jobs on eight additional Nimitz-class ships scheduled to get their midlife overhauls over the next 25 years is also likely to be a Navy undertaking.

As a reward for saving the Navy money, the 10 sailors get to split $10,000 in awards. One $5,000 award came several months ago from the Eisenhower itself. Another $5,000 came Wednesday from Naval Sea Systems Command, which oversees ship construction and repair. And the team of 10 is in the running for an additional award from Navy headquarters.

When the Ike's commanding officer, Capt. Charles E. Smith, learned of the sailors' idea, he urged them to apply for the prize money, which he knew was available for sailors who demonstrated what he called "good stewardship of finite dollars."

"Some of these kids are 19, 20 and 21, which proves that you don't have to be an old fart to come up with a great idea," Smith said. "We have a lot of great trade talent within ourselves, and they always surprise us with their new great ideas. The key is just to say, 'OK, shipmate, here's the ball -- now go run with it.' "

The repair task that the sailors were cited for involved about 200 phones (not just any phones -- $1,975 ones outfitted with lights and encased in heavy metal boxes), as well as about 190 amplifiers and about 100 speaker sets used for communication aboard ship.

That number is a far cry from the thousands of such pieces of equipment on the Ike that had been refurbished by the time the sailors got involved. For the next ship, the sailors said, the Navy will likely take over more of the work from the beginning.

Ferguson, 35, spearheaded the project. She said the sailors came up with a detailed plan for restoring the equipment, coordinated the process with technical manuals and tested the refurbished equipment to meet Navy standards and the manufacturer's specifications.

All the work was done offsite, at a Navy site near Copeland Industrial Park in Hampton.

They painted the phones, amps and speakers, and they even repackaged them before sending them back to the yard.

At one point, someone from the yard called, mistaking the shiny new boxes as coming in straight from the factory.

"They said, 'We thought you were going to send us refurbished equipment, not new equipment,' " Ferguson said.

"So we told them, 'That is refurbished equipment.' "

The Eisenhower's nuclear refueling and overhaul is a three-year, roughly $2.5 billion project that happens only once in a carrier's 50-year life span.

The job, scheduled to end in November, involves the replacement of the ship's nuclear fuel, as well as the replacement of thousands of valves, gauges, engines and other components.

The yard does the bulk of the work by far.

Much of the undertaking involves heavy industrial jobs that the Ike's sailors could not do on their own

But Smith, the captain, said the Ike's 3,000-member crew -- on duty aboard the ship, anyway -- saved the Navy money by handling what would be $300 million worth of work if the Navy had to pay for it separately.